Sirius' Plan for the Most Perfect Life
by Lirulin
Summary: Can Sirius Black take anything seriously? ... What's our favourite and most handsome mischiefmaker doing at his careers advice, this very important stage in the life of every 5th year student? Now epilogue added on the insistence of said Sirius Black...
1. Chapter 1

**Sirius' Plan For The Most Perfect Life There Ever Was  
**_by Lirulin _

**Disclaimer: **Sadly, nothing in here belongs to me. Everything's property of the wonderful and great J.K.Rowling and I'm just borrowing the characters for the fun of it.

I got the idea for this from and I just had to write it down. Insistent plot-bunny...  
Well, does Sirius ever take anything seriously? Read and see ...

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Professor McGonagall sighed wearily as she read the name of the student who would be visiting her next for careers advice.

Sirius Black.

She wondered what his plans for the future were, if he even had any. She somehow doubted it ...

Well, she had already made herself a nice peppermint tea (laced with two drops of a Calming Draught) and was waiting for the inevitable to come.

As if on cue, there was a knock at her door.

"Come in, Mr. Black."

Sirius stepped through the doorway, displaying extreme confidence and a kind of rugged charm, as always. His blue eyes were twinkling mischievously and as he sat down on the chair in front of the professor's desk, a small smile was playing around his lips.

"So, Mr. Black, I presume you know why you are here."

Sirius grinned. "Of course! But just so you know right away: I won't give you the recipe for the Firewhiskey topped strawberry cake. Can't have you teaching tipsy, can we."

The professor just looked at him for a moment, slightly disconcerted. "What exactly are you talking about, Mr. Black?"

Sirius managed to feign a very believable confused look. "What! You mean I'm not here to swap my best ever recipes with you?"

Professor McGonagall groaned and took a very long sip of her tea. "Mr. Black, please! This is careers advice! And as I don't think you consider being a chef, I ask you to be serious now!"

The boy just mock-saluted her. "I understand, ma'am! I'll be the most serious you have ever seen me. But, you know, with the whole chef thing... it could actually be a good idea, professor. I could open my own little restaurant, together with James, Remus and Peter, french-style perhaps. Of course I'd be the one serenading all those couples with a – what do they always use? – a violin? I'm clearly the most brillantly gorgeous of our group, so that'd be the ideal job for me. Oh well, but I'd have to be careful not to break the couples up. I mean, if I turn on my charm, every girl will fall for me. Peter and Remus could do the actual cooking, I think they're quite good at that, and James ... well, James can be the guy at the door, throwing all the Slytherins out. Professor, that's simply spiffing! Didn't think you had it in you!"

Minerva just wished to be somewhere else at the moment. That was exactly what she had expected. Complete and utter nonsense. "Mr. Black, you cannot tell me, that those are truly your plans for your future."

He smiled at her, disarmingly. "No, Professor McGonagall ma'am. But it could be back-up. If everything else fails."

She still wasn't sure if he was being serious or if it was all one big joke. "So, do you know what you want to be doing once you leave Hogwarts?"

"Of course! I want to become a salesman!"

That had her surprised once again. Where did that come from? "What do you mean – a salesman?"

Sirius leaned forward and looked her right in the eye. "You know, I found a foolproof niche. Remus told me about some strange Muggle tribes that are living right in the Sahara desert. And then it hit me! I'll go there and then ... and that's the ingenious part of my plan, just so you notice ... then I'll sell them snow!"

Professor McGonagall just barely refrained from putting her head in her heads. "Snow?", was all she managed to bring out faintly.

Sirius nodded vigorously. "Yes, snow. They don't know what it is, have never seen it. They will be ecstatic and pay astronomical prices. Of course, I'll put charms on the snow, so it doesn't melt. It is quite hot in the desert, after all."

By now, the professor was quite speechless and wished, she had put more of that Calming Draught into her tea.

But Sirius didn't seem to notice and was chattering on, waving his arms around wildly to bring his point across.

"And then I'll put the money I'll definitly make with that into research. I want to create a box that can contain the sunlight. Once I'm finished with that, I'll go to the North and the South Pole and sell the light to the natives living there. Half of the year it's completely dark up there, or down there. Depends on the way you look at it. How depressive is that, surrounded by darkness 24/7! They'll fight over it and I'll be making even more money."

She was quite overwhelmed by now. Normally, she wasn't easily surprised or stunned, but that was just a bit too much. "Anything else?" She really didn't want to ask, but she somehow had to.

Sirius clearly was in his element.

"Sure! So, when I'm filthyly rich, I'll buy Grimmauld Place and chuck all my relatives out. Perhaps I could also bribe the goblins to deny them access to the vaults. Oh, I can just imagine my dear old mother's face! It'll be priceless! Then I'll burn down the house and build a Muggle playground on the premises. My ancestors will roll around in their graves! Then I'll buy a Quidditch Team for my godson, who will be James child by the way. James will be living with his family somewhere nearby, you know. I'll also hire the best researchers in the whole world to find a cure for Moony, Remus that is. Oh, and before I forget it, I'll write a book about all my outrageous adventures here at Hogwarts and afterwards. And then I'm both rich and famous. Great isn't it?"

Professor McGonagall, who had been in some kind of stupor after the onslaught of "Sirius Black's Plan for the Most Perfect Life there Ever Was", managed to get herself together again. She turned an interesting shade of red and her eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Mr. Black! I see that you are incapable of taking even the most important matters to heart! It is cleary impossible to have a productive discussion on careers with you and you'll therefore leave my office immediately! You can be very grateful that I don't deduct points from Gryffindor for your highly improper behaviour!"

Her voice had gotten quite loud towards the end and Sirius was already backing away towards the door, a look of slight fear on his face.

"No need to start hissing at me. You really are very much like a cat when you're angry!"

The professor pointed a shaking finger at the door.

"Out!"

Sirius opened the door and stepped through it, but just before he was outside, he turned around again. He grinned cheekily and his eyes lit up.

"Just so you know: I'm actually planning on becoming an Auror."

With that he closed the door behind himself and walked away.

Now Professor McGonagall really put her head in her hands. What should one do with that boy? She didn't know.

But she had to admit – very grudingly – that it had been somewhat amusing and certainly the most unusual careers advice in her whole time at Hogwarts.

Salesman indeed! He'd probably mangage to pull it of, selling snow and sunlight ...

But she also didn't doubt that he would make a fantastic Auror. That is, if he didn't take down the Auror Academy before finishing his training, she mused wryly.

Sometimes, in quiet moments like these, she had to acknowledge that she liked Sirius Black a lot and that her daily life would be very boring without him there to cause the occasional mischief...

"_Granted, more than occasional, but you really can't stay angry at him for long."_

She drained the rest of her tea and looked at the next name. Lily Evans. This would certainly be a more normal careers advice.

Nonetheless, she poured herself another cup of tea. While Ms. Evans certainly would have concrete plans for her future and would gladly talk about them, the professor knew that the girl always managed to steer the conversation to one particular topic.

And so Professor McGonagall prepared herself for what would certainly turn into a rant about the most hideous misdeeds of one James Potter ...

**THE END

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Hope you liked it! Please hit the little violet button and leave a review!**


	2. Epilogue

**Disclaimer: **The characters (sadly) still don't belong to me. They are all property of J. K. Rowlings.

**Author's Notes: **After more than one and a half years one Sirius Black walked in again and demanded that an epilogue to his careers advice be written. According to him he still had something to tell and wanted to be the centre of a story once more on top of that. He was very insistent, and so here it is now.

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Professor McGonagall felt decidedly refreshed after her bath, as if all of the day's exhaustion and exasperation had been washed away with the warm water. Pouring herself a glass of Firewhisky, she decided to read a few pages of the most trivial book she could find and then to go to bed immediately, determined not to give another thought to her students or their antics. Tomorrow would come soon enough.

But it seemed the powers that be had different ideas...

She had just settled comfortably into the large armchair in front of the fireplace when there came an insistent knock at the entrance of her chambers. Professor McGonagall sighed wearily, contemplating for a second to pretend she was not there. But the knock came again, and her teacher's instincts took over. It might be something truly urgent. She only hoped nothing was wrong with her Gryffindors...

So she made her way over to the entrance and opened ... the question of what was wrong dying on her lips. Sirius Black. With a stack of papers in his arms. Grinning at her from ear to ear.

"Good evening, Professor! Do you have a moment?"

Minerva glanced over at the table next to her armchair questioningly. Did she have more to drink than she had thought? Was she hallucinating? But no, the glass was still slightly less than half full.

Before she quite knew what she was doing, she had already stepped aside, and Sirius took that as an invitation, making a beeline for the second armchair and plopping down into it. By the time her student started eyeing her room in interest Professor McGonagall had composed herself again and felt anger well up inside her.

"Mr. Black! What are you doing here? And how did you find my chambers?"

Only the prefects knew where the teachers had their quarters, and they had to make the solemn promise to never reveal the locations, the danger of being subject to pranks or other mischief was simply to high. She couldn't help but wonder how he had managed to find out this secret as well because she did not believe that Mr. Lupin would have told him.

Sirius meanwhile was trying to affect a look of complete virtue and innocence.

"But Professor! You can't expect me to reveal my most secret and mysterious sources! And I have done nothing wrong, it's not forbidden to know where your chambers are, as far as I know. We are just not told of their location. Anyway, am I not a paragon of good behaviour most of the time? At least at night, or in your lessons – sometimes? You've no reason to be suspicious, I have no frog in my pocket. I have something very important to discuss with you."

Minerva had to admit that he looked truly serious – and no, she was not acknowledging the pun, thank you very much – and so she slowly made her way back to her chair, sinking down into it in resignation. He was right, it was technically not forbidden to know where the quarters were. And it would be completely contrary to her nature to throw him out without even listening to him, he might have a problem he needed help with after all.

"Alright Mr. Black. What do want to tell me?"

She lifted her glass up again and took a rather large gulp, not caring that a student was seeing her consuming alcohol – she would not be able to corrupt this one more even if she tried. However, she thus missed the laughter that now lit up Sirius' sparkling grey eyes.

"Well, you see Professor, I was thinking. Which is not that world-shaking, I'm thinking often about lots of things. You know what, I think you're always thinking something. I mean, even if you think 'I'm not thinking anything', you're still thinking something. I really do wonder why that is so... Do you think our brain would die somehow if we didn't think all the time? Or is it just to keep us occupied? You know, all these little games like 'I think you think I think you think I'm a trouble-maker.'

"But anyway. As I said, I was thinking. About our careers advice which wasn't truly a careers advice at all, was it? It was just me telling you all these fun things – that I still believe might work by the way – and then you throwing me out. So I thought I'd come see you now and talk a bit more about my future."

Professor McGonagall couldn't supress a quiet groan after sorting through his ramblings. She had wanted to put careers advice far behind her and not think about it for at least the next 364 days. But the rational, pedagogic side of her mind had to agree with the boy. It had not been a productive session, and if he honestly wanted to discuss his options and his career with her now, she should support him and listen to his ideas.

"Well, now that you are already here, Mr. Black, we might as well conduct another conversation about your career. But I do not want to hear anything about salesmen, restaurants, or playgrounds. If I do, I will still deduct points from Gryffindor, even though I have refrained from doing so until now. Good, I believe you said you wanted to be an Auror just before you left this afternoon."

Sirius leaned back in his chair, pressing the tips of his fingers together and regarding her intently.

"Yes, I was thinking about that as well. And I believe this whole Auror-business is totally overrated and probably not the right thing for me. I mean, what about hazard pay or overtime premium? I never heard anything about it. And then I'd have to get up in the middle of the night when they call me... No, I think I'd like to do something in the money business."

Minerva had to blink several times. Had she heard that correctly? The school's adventurer number one with the devil-may-care attitude and the penchant to always be where he was not supposed to, the one who was always in action, wanted a dull, quiet job in a bank? She looked at him piercingly, trying to determine whether he was telling a joke once again, but she could not discern anything. So for the moment there was nothing but to believe him.

"You mean working for Gringotts, Mr. Black?"

She had barely finished her sentence when she finally saw it. The mischievous smile that had already adorned his face countless times and that normally meant the worst for anyone who happened to be around at the time.

"Not exactly, ma'am. I was thinking more along the lines of ... investments. You know, letting the money work for me."

By now, Professor McGonagall was more than wary. She couldn't tell what he had in mind, but she was sure it was nothing good.

"What... kinds of investments, Mr. Black?"

She had to know what he meant by his cryptic statement, if only because she was admittedly a bit curious now. And it was of course her duty to check what was going on when her students had these kinds of ideas. Who knew in what sort of business he could become entangled? If he was serious, of course. Sirius was now fiddling with the papers in his lap, arranging them back and forth and grinning to himself.

"Well, I've read an article in the Daily Prophet about this guy who is developing a hair restorer for house-elves. And that sounds really promising to me. I bet that you can make a lot of money with this sort of thing. I mean, house-elves are not what you would call beautiful, are they? Ours, Kreacher, looks like something you've scraped out of the drainage. But perhaps they'd be nicer to look at with some hair on their heads. So, I was thinking I could invest in this guy, help him open a shop in Diagon Alley or something, and get an interest in it. Like 40 % of the profit or so. And then..."

He was brandishing various papers at her depicting heads of house-elves with and without hair, lists of formulas and some diagrams that seemed to show the hair-loss of elves throughout the twentieth century as far as she could see it, while still talking at a great rate about the advantages of hairy elves. Professor McGonagall felt as if she was in a bit of a daze, and at this moment she realised that the influence of the Calming Draught she had consumed steadily over almost the whole day combined with the effect of the Firewhisky had drastically lowered her inhibitions. Her normal severity as well as her tact and decorum seemed to have gone overboard.

"Are you mad, Mr. Black?"

Sirius halted mid-sentence and looked at her like a kicked puppy, with big eyes and a slightly quivering lower lip. But she nevertheless thought she could detect a hint of respect and admiration as well as a great deal of humour in his expression.

"I'm not mad! You never understand me! You always deduct points and give me detentions, never seeing me for what I really am! I'm a misjudged genius! I always knew it! Oh woe is me!"

And he buried his head in his arms, performing a very convincing show of uncontrollable sobbing. Minerva felt a headache beginning to build behind her eyes. She was definitely not in the mood for this. Fortunately – for both herself and her student – Sirius looked up again after a few seconds, beaming at her.

"You believed it, didn't you? You believed that I was terribly upset and that your words hurt me. Perhaps I should become an actor... Anyway, the money I get from the house-elves-hair-shop will be my basic capital. You know, Remus told me something about a place called stock market – or was it stick? No, that wouldn't make any sense, who'd want to trade in sticks? And there you buy... now, what did he say? It was quite complicated... Ah, yes! Shares! You buy those and then you can get a lot of money pretty fast. I didn't quite understand everything, Remus can talk really fast, and he gets angry when you interrupt him.

"So, as far as I got it, you have these share-things – although I still don't see what you share with whom – and there are some points that go up and down. And when they are up, you sell your shares somehow, and then you have much more money than before. Remus said the capital can increase experimentally... no, that's not the word. Exceptionally? No... Exponentially, whatever that means. As far as I see it, I wouldn't even have to work! The money will do that for me! Am I not great?"

While delivering this animated speech he had scattered still more papers around himself, some displaying rows and rows of numbers, others tables with rising and falling curves. Minerva honestly didn't care about any of it, and she did not have the nerve to look at the papers more closely. Despite the slightly numbing and blanketing effect of the firewhisky she was by now truly exasperated and angry.

"Mr. Black! Are you honestly telling me that you are disturbing my well earned free time with a totally hare-brained notion of buying and selling some obscure things? Have you not done enough mischief for one day? I believe I do not have to remind you of your various disruptions of different carrers advice sessions. I have been very lenient today, but if I hear you utter one more word here in my room you will lose more points than you have outrageous ideas in your head, and you will clean every single staircase in the castle. Now go! Leave! And do not dare to come here again!"

Sirius looked at her fearfully, as if he believed she would start breathing fire every moment, then gathered all his papers hastily and retreated to the door. He opened his mouth, wanting to reply something, but thought better of it. The threat obviously carried great weight with him. Professor McGonagall followed him on his heels; she would not put it past him to try another prank even now, and she would only be able to relax when he was well and truly gone. She almost shoved him out and was just about to close the door behind him when Sirius turned around again.

"Please wait, Professor. And don't look at me like that. I'm not in your room anymore, so I can talk."

Minerva rubbed her aching head gingerly and wondered – not for the first time – why she had to be cursed with a student who took every one of her words literally. She regarded him warily and was almost resolved to simply close the door in his face when he bent down and grabbed something seemingly out of thin air.

Then she saw something silvery flow onto the floor. And before she knew what was happening, she was presented with a huge bouquet of pink roses and yellow lillies.

"Here. These are for you, Professor."

Minerva took the flowers from his hands, completely stunned and not able to form a coherent sentence for some moments.

"Well... thank you, Mr. Black. But... why?"

Sirius smiled at her disarmingly, and a small, distinctly girlish part of her mind remarked that if she were about 30 years younger she would probably be swooning over him now.

"It's to say sorry. I really didn't want to make your day that much more stressful. I've heard about some of the sessions, and it sounded truly exhausting. You know, I wouldn't want to make you too miserable, I really do like you. So, I'm sorry. Also for your window and the cabinet, that was honestly not planned. And it's to say thank you for not deducting points or giving me detention today."

Professor McGonagall was truly touched by his words – she had once again underestimated and misjudged him.

"They are beautiful, Mr. Black. Thank you. But answer me one last question. Why all this nonsense about investments and hair potions? I am sure you were not serious."

Sirius laughed and bowed to her in mock-reverence.

"You are of course right, ma'am, as always. I still stand by what I told you this afternoon. I want to become an auror. But it went against my honour as a master of the noble art of mischief-making to simply come here and give you the bouquet. Anyway, my mission here is accomplished, and I now bid you a good night and sweet dreams."

With that he bowed again, lifted the invisibility cloak off the floor, and then strolled down the corridor, vanishing around the next corner.

Minerva retreated into her chambers, placed the flowers in a vase and sat down in her armchair again. She gazed at the truly stunning bouquet pensively, forbidding herself to contemplate where he had gotten it because she could tell it was not magical or conjured up.

Sirius Black was simply unpredictable. A completely exasperating and irrepressible boy whose goal in life seemed to be to cause as much chaos as possible, but who could still be utterly charming, thoughtful and courteous when he wanted to be so. She shook her head slightly and took another sip of her firewhisky. She would probably never be able to understand fully what was going on inside his head. But perhaps this was what he intended, to 'keep her on her toes', as he would call it.

Perhaps he just liked to surprise her at regular intervals. And to be totally honest, she was quite fond of some of those 'surprises'. Professor McGonagall would never mention it to one of her colleagues, but she knew her life would be a lot more boring without one Sirius Black in it, and he certainly was the most special student she had taught in her almost 20 years at Hogwarts.

THE END (hopefully...)

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Sirius: I'm great, am I not? I went all the way to Hogmeade to buy a bouquet for my professor. And I convinced her (points finger) to write about it. I truly am a genius.

Me: And one day your head will explode. He practically forced me! He just barged in and started ranting about not having enough to say in the other stories.

Sirius: I did no such thing! I just politely pointed out that you did not include me in the last careers advice story, and that it was only fair to have one for me alone now. By the way, go read the other stories as well, they're not bad. Even the one without me, hard as it is to believe...

Me: Thank you for the vote of confidence, Mr. Black.

Sirius: I only aim to please... So, now you (points at reader) only have to leave a review. Perhaps you can convince her to write the story she has referred to here although it is not yet written. Did that make sense? ... Yes it did. Anyway, till next time!


End file.
